Global Public Policy Institute
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29 August 2008
The Guardian publishes GPPi op-ed on "Designing the Cold Peace"
GPPi fellow Sergey Lagodinsky published an op-ed on “Designing the Cold Peace” in the Guardian online edition on 28 August 2008. Lagodinsky argues that “the war in Georgia has been a brutal reminder that the brief love affair between Russia and the west is over. The challenge now is how to design a viable framework for peaceful co-existence of this divorced couple, still full of mutual distrust, but forced to live side by side. An open and frank process of delimiting the respective spheres of influence must become the crucial first step towards finally agreeing on a comprehensive post-Soviet strategic map going well beyond the immediate conflict in Georgia”.
Lagodinsky also sketches an outline of a geo-strategic deal, a “cold peace”: the West secures the democratic projects in Georgia and Ukraine while it accepts independence for Abchasia and South Ossetia as well as assures Russia that it considers other former Soviet Republics, especially Belarus, Armenia, Moldova and Kazakhstan as part of the Russian sphere of influence.
To read the full article, please click here.
Russian version here.